When I was a kid summer meant sleeping late and playing in the street until past dark.  Kick the Can and Green Light Red/Light were the games of choice.  On occasion, my parents sent us to a local parks and recreation class, but that was boring compared to our summer adventures.  This week I spoke to several moms who are stretched thin driving children to lessons, camps and tutoring.  I’ve got my cutie in tutoring three days a week, tennis five days a week, and cheer class once a week.  My sloth-like summers are a thing of the past.

Several friends have hired college students to help them drive their children to activities that only Mapquest can find.  These days college is competitive and maybe our kids will have an advantage because their summers are spent learning everything from a slice serve to geometry.  When I attended college it seemed like a heartbeat and a high school diploma were all you needed to get into the school of choice.  Today? Kids work hard all year around building the skills to distinguish themselves for future teachers, coaches, colleges, and employers.

But, have we gone too far?  Will our kids know how to relax and enjoy life?

(Photo of Greenhill athletic facilities provided by Joe Monaco.)

Greenhill developed Bigger Faster Stronger (BFS) last year to help their student athletes stay in shape over the summer. This year, starting June 6, Greenhill’s athletic center is open for their athletes at no cost. The students are supervised by volunteer coaches.

The training is not sport specific, but benefits all athletes. It is separate from pre-season practice, which is designed for individual sports. All BFS exercises focus on core training, speed, agility, and flexibility.

Fourth-grader Charlsie Doan is a basketball player, a gymnast, a golfer, a violinist, and a pretty good fundraiser. More impressively, she does it all without the full use of her right hand. Charlsie was born with Symbrachydactyly, a congenital hand disorder. Earlier this month, Charlsie raised more than $50,000 for Kid Swing, a project of the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital, where Charlsie has been a patient since she was 6 months old.

For more information, read Hockaday’s press release after the jump. Read More…

The boy you see here is 12-year-old Preston Hollow resident Cameron Ordinario, who is finishing his first year at DISD’s Greiner Exploratory Arts Academy. Until Version 5.0 of the district’s 2011-12 budget was unveiled yesterday afternoon, Cameron and his peers thought the academy — which counts my wife and my baby brother among its alums — was going to be shut down. As is, the academy is still likely to lose half of its faculty.

I chatted with Cameron’s mom, Rebecca, outside DISD headquarters yesterday. “It is an environment that embraces the arts,” she said of Greiner. “At most schools, these kids would be bullied. There’s not even a private middle school that has an intensive arts program. Greiner is all we have.”

Why hello there. Through the magic of the internet, this post comes to you while I am away on the sandy beaches of Belize. Don’t worry, I’m not working on my vacation (heresy!), I’m simply the plan ahead type and had this bad boy ready to go before the prop-plane (hopefully) safely delivered me to paradise.

If I didn’t make it, consider this my wish from beyond the grave for you to have a wonderful weekend.

I’m on vacation, you should be, too. Drop the kids off at Town North YMCA for Parent’s Day Out starting at 1 p.m. and enjoy an afternoon full of leisure and lounging. Or frantic errand-running and house-cleaning, whichever you feel needs a kid-free environment more.

It’s late May, and graduation is in the air. You’ve likely got the video camera charged, grandparents in town, and a family dinner in the oven, but just in case you forgot when you need to be where, consult this commencement listing:

Friday:

Hockaday, (eighth-grade graduation), 1 p.m.

Saturday:

W.T. White, 1 p.m., Moody Coliseum

Shelton School, 2 p.m.

Jesuit, 4 p.m.

Hockaday, (senior graduation) 7 p.m.

Sunday:

Parish Episcopal School, 1 p.m., Meyerson Symphony Center

Yavneh Academy, 3 p.m., Congregation Tiferet Israel

Episcopal School of Dallas, 5 p.m.

Ursuline, 6:30 p.m.